Recipes

I managed to coerce my 27 y/o son away from his enthralling video game to head into the kitchen to make his favorite food from scratch. He was not enthused at all, but I was sure we could turn that around.  I had a recipe, a bread maker, all the ingredients, and enough gumption for the two of us.  We assembled all the ingredients on the counter and started measuring them out.  The recipe itself didn’t call for a bread maker, but I was going to shortcut that with my machine.  The first thing that didn’t seem right was when we had to add the yeast to the water.  Normally, in a bread machine, you just poke a small hole in the flour and drop in the yeast, and then put the liquid on the other side, but OK if that’s what the recipe wanted, I better follow the rules!  In no time at all, we again had the machine on the dough setting and a feeling of accomplishment rising.  “Did you add the olive oil?” my son asked.   His eyes rolled to the ceiling when he saw my shocked expression. Quickly, I shut the machine off, and we dumped the two tablespoons in.  I don’t recall ever adding olive oil to the bread machine in years past, but I WILL conform to the recipe.  Once the machine was back on, we each went back to our respective corners for the hour and forty-five minutes it would take for the dough to form. When it was getting close to the time, I took a peek and was shocked to see that it looked nothing like previously created forms of dough I’ve seen. It appeared very runny, and I didn’t think another three minutes was going to change anything, but I waited the full time.  I floured the counter and poured it out like a large pancake. I dusted my hands with flour and tried to scoop it together while the ‘Mission Impossible’ theme suddenly played in my head.  I need a TON more flour and I couldn’t use my hands to get any as they were packed with wet sticky dough, so I called out for help.  Patrick came into the kitchen, saw what I was doing, and dumped a good portion of flour over my hands and the pile they were stuck in.  He quickly abandoned ship and left me alone in the kitchen again. That flour seemed to help as I was able to rub my hands together to get all the stuff off them, and then I started working on forming a dough ball.  It took quite a bit more flour, but then hard sections forming on the counter were getting in the way of rolling the dough.  I grabbed one of those small plastic scrapers that Pamper Chef gives with their stoneware and scraped all the hard bits of dough off to the side.  I again floured the countertop and my hands and resumed working the dough.  I added to the ball all the bits and pieces that were laying around and kept mushing it together. Success was achieved so I put a small bit of flour in the bottom of a bowl, dropped the dough in, covered it with a clean kitchen towel and set it on the floor by the heating vent.  I went into Patrick’s game room and informed him that the dough was proofing, and in 30 minutes I would know whether there was still any life left in the yeast or if it was all going in the trash.  He gave me a sideways look and went out to the garage ‘frig to get a frozen macaroni and cheese meal to microwave.  He had told me earlier that day that he was all out of his Better Health frozen meals, which is why I suggested making the pizza.  “I was saving one for an emergency, and this is an emergency.” After he was done eating, he asked me if I wanted to learn how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch.  I was kind of invested in the pizza by now, but since I have been encouraging him to learn to cook, I had to go along.  (According to him, I’m ‘almost the world’s worse cook’ which might explain his reluctance to join me in the kitchen.)  He quickly got out the pans for boiling the elbows and making the roux and got to work.  I have never made a roux in my life but at least I knew what it was! He explained everything rather scientifically as he proceeded through the process and refused to let me help.  Eventually I was allowed to stir the noodles as they boiled, and later even gave the roux a stir when he had to step away from the stove.  When the 30 minutes on the dough proofing was up, I was ecstatic to see that the dough had actually increased in size!  I started mushing it out on the newly floured counter, and spreading it to get it to the approximate size of my pizza stone.  Patrick had previously sliced the mozzarella and we had the sauce at the ready, so he instructed me that he would assemble the pizza when I had the dough ready.  The dough was a little weird, though, as some areas felt like normal dough and other areas felt very dense and unyielding.  In fact, I couldn’t get this one section to do much at all, so I told Patrick we were just going to ignore that little part and work with the rest of it.  He came over to add the sauce and cheese and remarked that it looked like a Pac-man. I left the pizza area to go to the stove to babysit the roux and cheese mixture, while Patrick finished the pizza. While we were talking, Patrick mentioned that the flour to water ratio was all wrong in the dough and it probably didn’t

The elegant dessert was slowly rolled out into the center dining area of a small Indian restaurant in Windsor, Canada, on a cloth-covered cart.  Twenty-five of us were at my friend’s 50th birthday celebration and everyone’s focus was on the large white half-circle shaped mound covered with swirls heading our way.  The waiter poured something on it and instantly the whole thing was on fire.  I was amazed!!  What could this be? Cake and ice cream and meringue – the perfect combination.  I had to try this at home.  A friend had suggested using a pound cake, so I bought a box mix and baked it up.  Looking back, I’m not really sure what possessed me to think I could successfully recreate this dreamy dessert, because I was not that great a cook to begin with, and rarely baked.  But everything sounded simple enough, once I read the recipe for Baked Alaska and how to make meringue.   When the stove buzzer went off, I pulled the cake out of the oven and set it to cool on a rack on the counter.  I waited for it to cool as long as I could stand it, probably 20 minutes.  My boyfriend (now spousal unit) was napping on the couch after dinner, and I wanted to surprise him so I had to quickly finish it before he woke up.  After I poked and pried it out of the loaf pan, I took a long knife and cut it horizontally.  About half-way through, I noticed that some raw dough came out on the knife as I drew it back.  I was puzzled by this, but I finished cutting it and lifted off the top only to find out that a small football-shaped size hadn’t cooked in the middle.  My oven must be off kilter, but there was no time to put it back in, so I scooped out the gooey parts from both the top and bottom and got out the vanilla ice cream. I sliced the ice cream in one-inch sections so I could just lay them on top of the bottom layer of the cake.  I trimmed up the excess, ate it, and put the rest back in the freezer.  As I put the top on the cake, a lot of the ice cream seemed to disappear so I added some more.  I quickly put the top on, covered it in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer so it would hold while I made the meringue. I flawlessly prepared the meringue and thought this baking stuff is pretty simple after all!  Once I saw peaks in the meringue, I knew I was good to go.  I got out the 151 rum and a lighter, pulled the cake out of the freezer and spread the meringue all over it, twirling little peaks into it.  It looked like a miniature rectangle version of the cake at the Indian restaurant.  I was getting prouder by the minute!  I briefly put it in the oven to get the peaks brown.  When I took it out, I grabbed the bottle of rum and a tablespoon, and as I poured the rum into the spoon over the top of the cake, I had an essential tremor incident with my hands and much more rum than anticipated spilled on the cake.  Hmmm.  The little bit I had in the spoon went onto the cake as well because I didn’t have time to get it back into the bottle.  I picked up the cake, balanced it in one hand and walked from the kitchen through the dining room, into the living room where John was napping.  Half-way into the dining room, I called for John to wake up and I lit the cake. I had never been that close to a large flaming anything before in my entire life.  I don’t know how I didn’t drop it.  I could smell some of my bangs as they singed.  I huffed and puffed on the cake to put out the fire as I slowly walked toward the couch.  John popped his head over the back of the couch, his eyes got wide and he yelled, “What the heck are you doing???” I was red in the face by the time the fire went out.  The dessert was suddenly well done.  Time to eat it!!!  I took it back into the kitchen, cut two slices and headed back to the living room. My first bite told me how much 151 had really spilled onto the platter.  The second bite showed me what little ice cream was left inside.  I guess it absorbed into the warm cake.  The flavor was still very good but within no time at all after we finished, we experienced that bloated gut-bomb feeling (a familiar feeling with my cooking).  The rest of the dessert wound up in the trash, but I promised John I would perfect this recipe and try again! By the time I attempted Round Two, we had moved my household across town into a townhouse next door to my Aunt Rosie and Uncle Jim, where we would live when we were married in a few months.   John had told them some time ago about the Baked Alaska fiasco.  I was tired of beting teased about it so I decided to make it for them as my aunt’s birthday was coming up.  This time, I bought a pound cake already made.  First problem solved.  I sliced it in half again, cut the ice cream to fit, put the top on and covered it in plastic wrap to wait in the freezer while I made the meringue.   Everything was going according to plan.  Our townhouse had one of those ovens that sat above the cooktop instead of below, which I had never owned before.  The door opened from right to left instead of top to bottom.  Once the meringue was applied, I put the dessert in the overhead oven.  Within minutes, the top slid